Consumer electronics maker Samsung has voiced its goal of becoming the No. 1 notebook maker, but it will run up against rival Apple and its hot-selling MacBook lineup on its way to the top.

After enjoying success in the smart TV and smartphone segments, South Korea's Samsung says it is bringing its attention to bear on conquering the notebook market.

"The strategic position of the notebook product line has become increasingly important to the overall product mix of Samsung Electronics, and the company's ultimate goal is to capture the top-ranking title in the segment, according to the company's executive vice president Gregory Lee," DigiTimes reported on Friday.

The company took the wraps off of several new notebook models at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nev., this week in an effort to capture the market. At the show, it showed off a new Series 5 ultrabook, as well as a Series 9 laptop billed as the "world's thinnest notebook." The new models are due out in Asia later this quarter.

Samsung is also working with Google on a ChromeOS-powered netbook initiative.

But, the South Korean company will face heated competition from Apple, which has seen repeated successes with its MacBook portables, most recently with its revamped MacBook Air. According to one report earlier this week, the Cupertino, Calif., Mac maker sold 1.2 million MacBook Airs in the December quarter, up 200,000 units from the third quarter of calendar 2011.

Apple has benefitted from the fact that its MacBook Airs don't use hard-disk drives, which have recently been in short supply because of flooding in Thailand. Notebooks have become an increasingly important part of Apple's Mac product line, comprising 74 percent of all Mac sales last quarter.

Intel released its ultrabook design specification last year as a response to the success of Apple's thin-and-light MacBook Air. The chipmaker is aiming to push ultrabooks to a 40 percent share of the consumer laptop market by the end of 2012, but analysts at Gartner noted on Wednesday that ultrabooks failed to gain traction when they arrived last fall.

Apple was the only company among the top five PC vendors in the U.S. to grow shipments last quarter. It saw 20.7 percent growth, compared to a dismal 26.1 percent decline in shipments from top PC maker HP. For its part, Samsung did not appear on either of Gartner's top five PC vendor lists for the global or U.S. markets.

As for smartphones, Samsung has risen to prominence with its line of smartphones in just a few years, claiming the top spot from Apple and Nokia in the third quarter of 2011. However, Apple has alleged in several lawsuits that Samsung's success is based on "slavish" copying of its iPhone designs.

Samsung reported record profits when it announced its preliminary quarterly results last week, driven largely by one-off gains and strong smartphone sales. Though the company has ceased reporting smartphone shipment numbers, one analyst estimated that the company sold 32 million smartphones in the fourth quarter. That would put it in a close race with Apple, as analyst estimates for iPhone sales range from 25 million to 36 million units, according to one poll.

The Ultrabooks shown at CES by Samsung are really nice. I don't think anyone had a better overall design. I didn't care for the HP with the glass on the top case or the 360° foldable notebook to tablet from whomever.

I think Samsung has a chance of being the most profitable non-Mac PC vendor.

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The Ultrabooks shown at CES by Samsung are really nice. I don't think anyone had a better overall design. I didn't care for the HP with the glass on the top case or the 360° foldable notebook to tablet from whomever.

I think Samsung has a chance of being the most profitable non-Mac PC vendor.

You must work for samsung...they should change there name to Copy/paste.

The Ultrabooks shown at CES by Samsung are really nice. I don't think anyone had a better overall design. I didn't care for the HP with the glass on the top case or the 360° foldable notebook to tablet from whomever.

I think Samsung has a chance of being the most profitable non-Mac PC vendor.

Yeah. I've gained much respect for Samsung's notebooks. Their notebooks are still no-namers here in the US, but I've heard nothing but good things about them. I'd like to see a few tiers develop over the next few years:

1. Macbooks. Need I say more?

2. Premium PC notebooks. Here you have Samsung's higher end Series 9 and possibly even the Series 7 and ultrabooks. The Envy line could also take a spot in this line if HP could manage to get the touchpad drivers to adequate levels.

The problem is that they can copy the look, the material used, and even the same chips and components, but in the end, it still runs Windows. It's still one of a thousand others that also run Windows. There's nothing special about it. It might be a better laptop than the others, but they'll never compete a long as it runs Windows. Windows PC buyers generally shop for the lowest price, and that means high-end products like these are sunk.

The Ultrabooks shown at CES by Samsung are really nice. I don't think anyone had a better overall design. I didn't care for the HP with the glass on the top case or the 360° foldable notebook to tablet from whomever.

I think Samsung has a chance of being the most profitable non-Mac PC vendor.

I don't care for the glass lid on the HP machine either. But the glass palm rest is a nice ... touch.

This is what annoys me about the "Sony/Toshiba/Lenovo did thin notebooks first" crowd. True, those ultraportables have been around for years, but then Apple had the Powerbook Duo back in the late 1990s, too. It wasn't until the MacBook Air, and specifically the late 2010 MacBook Air, that these became mainstream.

Heck, there was even talk right before the October 2010 release of the Rev D Air that Apple would even DROP the line entirely. To Apple's credit, they kept going even after the early models struggled. If not for them blazing the trail, we wouldn't be seeing dozens of Ultrabooks at CES this week.

That said, Samsung does produce nice ultraportables, and their original Series 9 was nicely done. I also like some of the Ultrabooks I've seen from Lenovo, HP, ASUS, Acer, and even Dell. It's about time that the "standard" 5-6lb notebook went the way of the dodo.

Now that I'm half way between my transition to Premiere from FCP7, I think my next laptop may be a Samsung. I'll keep my MBP with FCP for those times I want to work on a task I'm familiar with in FCP.
I'm really after a unit that suports USB3, good quality screen.
I'm loving this competition as a consumer, more choices for me when the time comes to make a purchase

Considering they will be running the same Windows OS and the same applications as some cheap no name brand laptop why should a consumer buy a Samsung? PCs have become commoditized. IBM was smart by selling off there PC business several years back. There is no real money to be made from selling Windows machines.

That Samsung is very interesting - it has a Matte screen AND a 15" MBA equivalent. All that remains is to find out if I can make it into a Hackintosh running Snow Leopard (Lion's useless for my needs and a bundle of woe in any case at the moment).

This is what annoys me about the "Sony/Toshiba/Lenovo did thin notebooks first" crowd. True, those ultraportables have been around for years, but then Apple had the Powerbook Duo back in the late 1990s, too. It wasn't until the MacBook Air, and specifically the late 2010 MacBook Air, that these became mainstream.

Heck, there was even talk right before the October 2010 release of the Rev D Air that Apple would even DROP the line entirely. To Apple's credit, they kept going even after the early models struggled. If not for them blazing the trail, we wouldn't be seeing dozens of Ultrabooks at CES this week.

That said, Samsung does produce nice ultraportables, and their original Series 9 was nicely done. I also like some of the Ultrabooks I've seen from Lenovo, HP, ASUS, Acer, and even Dell. It's about time that the "standard" 5-6lb notebook went the way of the dodo.

In all fairness this category used to start at double what it starts at now.

What annoys about this category is how it was deemed pointless when Apple created the first MBA. How it was considered pure form over function. That thinness doesn't matter, it's all about footprint. That an aluminium chassis was over-engineering. That a large multi-touch trackpad was just a gimmick. That a built-in battery and soldered RAM was just Apple trying to rape the customer and had nothing to do with the function of the design.

Quote:

Originally Posted by funkdis

Now that I'm half way between my transition to Premiere from FCP7, I think my next laptop may be a Samsung. I'll keep my MBP with FCP for those times I want to work on a task I'm familiar with in FCP.
I'm really after a unit that suports USB3, good quality screen.
I'm loving this competition as a consumer, more choices for me when the time comes to make a purchase

I'd wait. The Series 9 are well constructed but the reviews are saying the display is average with the 13" MBA being better. It's usually more of an Android thing to say "Soon!" but if it were me and I was using it to edit video on a notebook I'd wait to see if USB 3.0 is added because it's added to the Intel chipset and if Apple goes with a HiDPI and/or IPS panel which is cropping in several places at CES for notebooks. Also, the Samsung Ultrabooks only have an option for a 128GB SSD while you can get a MBA with twice that much storage right now.

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I like how the sales guy in the video used the words 'Innovative','Single Shell','Aluminum Body'. They didn't innovate, the whole Ultrabook concept is a blatant rip of Apples MacbookAir Unibody Aluminum design. However The 15" screen in a 14" chassis does looks promising and shows it can be done. Apple bring out a 15" Air please!

Did you ever think, let's just give Windows a fair chance? I did that with Vista and spent a couple thousand dollars on a high end machine for my home office. Loser! Windows 7 is so much better I'm told. Right... I have been playing the Windows "me too" game from the beginning and it still doesn't come close to Mac OS X. It doesn't matter what hardware you have, it is the software that is important. One thing I can say though, is that when I comes to Adobe CS Suite, there is very little difference between Mac and Windows. The main difference is the day to day navigating the file system and desktop as well as the integration of the various applications and services. For that, Mac is much better.

That Samsung is very interesting - it has a Matte screen AND a 15" MBA equivalent. All that remains is to find out if I can make it into a Hackintosh running Snow Leopard (Lion's useless for my needs and a bundle of woe in any case at the moment).

I don't think Samsung's goal is to beat Apple. They seem to be mimicking Apple and beating vendors that use Android and, I predict, vendors that use Windows. They seem to be going for the premium markets of the non-Apple customers. I don't know why you'd choose a Dentley over a Bentley when the price is the higher for the copy-cat brand but you can't deny that it's working for them.

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The Ultrabooks shown at CES by Samsung are really nice. I don't think anyone had a better overall design. I didn't care for the HP with the glass on the top case or the 360° foldable notebook to tablet from whomever.

I think Samsung has a chance of being the most profitable non-Mac PC vendor.

From what articles I saw I would have to agree. The Samsung models where the nicest looking of the previewed Ultrabooks. And yes they could be the number one in that group. But even if they were number one in the Ultrabooks it doesn't mean they will actually bet the macbook air or even just MacBooks in general. No matter what Samsung's people say

I don't think Samsung's goal is to beat Apple. They seem to be mimicking Apple and beating vendors that use Android and, I predict, vendors that use Windows. They seem to be going for the premium markets of the non-Apple customers. I don't know why you'd choose a Dentley over a Bentley when the price is the higher for the copy-cat brand but you can't deny that it's working for them.

That's probably closer to the mark. Go for the easy pickings instead of the bigger beast.

At the end of the day the PC market is about a race to the bottom. There is no such thing as a "premium PC market" as those people buy Macs, and they don't buy Macs so they can run Windows.

Whereas Windows users buy on price, and premium machines are cheap by their very nature.

So all the talk about Samsung competing with Apple is just stuff and nonsense.

If you don't believe me, pick out the research done a while back about how the market breaks down when you take into account how much people spend and you'll discover that the only game in town for a machine above $1k is Apple. And what makes the Mac stick out - OSX.

"Being Thin has never been so Big".... they are using similar marketing slogans to Apple... really lost respect for Samsung especially with the Galaxy debacle, copying the iPhone hardware design and skinning Android to look like iOS for a comprehensive knockoff. I feel bad that I have a Samsung monitor just because it was a bit cheaper.

Supposed the price of all internal components is the same between MBA and Series 9, I do believe it is difficult for Samsung to set its selling price as same as Apple. Reasons is...

Firstly, Apple has less models than Samsung and most of them are fully using unibody housing. So Apple can keep the cost down per each unit cost in term of scale of economy. (The way to take Apple's position is to combine all other Brands together and share their casings in a one single-shell design! Only difference is to put different Logo into it but sounds impossible.)

Secondly, Apple has plenty of free cash in hand and no plan for returning dividend to shareholder. It can lock up the major components by prepayment. Moreover, Apple can help the vendors to build more factories in order to either ensure the capacity or make some advanced components which never existed before.